The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-01-07

under the flag Of armed treason. Some Of
fame" by reason Of their reasonable conduct
in other years were present yesterday, and
applauded the revolutionary performances of
their.successols with all the vehement glee
that an arbitrator might properly feel over
the apt achievements of younger pupils in his
school of infamy.
OF course the man Green Smith had no
possible color Of right to assume the chair and
call the Senate to order. If he had been
legally elected President pro tenn. at the
session Of .1SS5-which he was not,
as the journal Of the body clear
ly shows-his Office could not and
did not continue. That the Democratic con-
spirators themselves knew that his claim was
baseless and impudent, was shown by the
official attendance of the Auditor of State,
who, by law, has no connection with the or
ganization of the Senate save to preside at
the same when there is no presiding officer in
Lieutenant-governor. The Lieutenant gov
ernor, whose official term may extend over
two terms of the Senate, is the only officer
whose presidency continues; the title of any
and every President pro tenn. whenever
elected, must, of necessity, be extinguished
at the close of the session. This is too plain
proposition for argument. 1t was concurred
IN and followed by Senator Viehe, an honor
able Democrat and good lawyer, in the session
of 1870 and was accepted and concurred in by
all the Democrats in the Senate at that ses-
sion. The claim of Green Smith is utterly
but is in violation of both, and is merely an
incident in the revolutionary programme of
the Democratic gang, whereby it is proposed
to vitiate the late election, and to arbitrarily
set at defiance the will of the people. Not
only was this revolutionary claim put for
ward yesterday, but it was asserted in the
most insolent and brutal manner Mr. Smith
displayed the coarseness of cowherd, as his
brutality toward Senators was certainly the
| ignorant force Of conscious coward. No
honorable, self-respecting man could, for a
moment, consent to descend to the level he
occupied with such indecent gusto and clown
I! ishness
1t is we'll that the episode occurred just as
it did, in manner and substance. Had the
usurpation been committed to the hands Of a
man with even the veneering of gentleman
illness, it might have commended itself to
some. But as it is, the revolutionary pro-
ceeding will go to the people with the added
infamy of the coarseness and buffoonery of
the Jennings county What-is-it. The people
of the State will be aroused. They must and
will see what the Democratic srapists
propose. Not only Senators, but Dem
ocratic leaders of hitherto fair standing,
chuckled in the Hobbies as the disgraceful
scene was being carried forward, and Joined
in loud applause at its consummation. But
there is a court more powerful than a sena.
torial majority presided over by a bully
drunken with the lust of power. The people
read and the people think; people make up
their minds, and the people act. There
comes time when such plottings and plot
tiers as those of neutrality-suspicious. tools
puppets and clowns, one and Iall-fall between
the upper and neither millstones and are
ground to powder.